In countless modern devices, power supply remains a significant hurdle to further advancement and utility of the state of the art. Many electronic barriers have been broken. Many size barriers have been broken. Self-contained and/or portable devices requiring energy for operation continue to be limited by a relatively lagging state of technological development of power sources. In any number of devices ranging from detection equipment to laptop computers, the power source is primary limitation on continuous operation. In many instances, the power supply also dwarfs the complicated electronics, displays, interfaces and other portions of a given device.
One particularly important field is that of microelectromechanical systems (MEMS). MEMS technology has introduced miniaturization of military and civilian systems. MEMS devices have micromechanical portions that provide important functionality and permit integration with electronics. Such miniaturization offers greatly improved portability and mobility. This in turn translates to reduced invasiveness in countless applications, including for example, diagnostic systems. MEMS also significantly reduced costs in space explorations. However, a fully miniaturized system requires a similarly miniaturized power source.